This invention concerns fluorescent light fixtures and more particularly accessories for reducing the power consumption of such fixtures.
In recent years there has been a trend to reducing the number of fluorescent tubes installed in fixtures in offices and commercial establishments, often with lower wattage tubes. This is for the purpose of substantially reducing the power consumption for lighting. Often, a reflector is added so that the light output of the fixture is not correspondingly reduced.
See U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,793 issued on Apr. 30, 1985, for a "Reflector System for Securing to a Light Source", describing an arrangement for retrofitting an existing light fixture with a reflector to enhance the light output.
One approach which has become a common practice is to replace the four standard 40 watt tubes in a four tube fixture with two lower wattage tubes. However, a drawback to this approach is that if two tubes are simply removed and the remaining two installed in one or the other of the sockets, there will appear dark shadows due to the absence of the other two light tubes.
The appearance of such shadows is often felt to be objectionable, and to avoid this result, it has been the usual practice to relocate two of the sockets closer to the center of the fixture by cutting new recesses into the sheet metal and removing and reinstalling the socket sets. Such an approach is relatively costly since requiring a time consuming effort on the part of an electrician. Also, often the relocated tube is skewed due to a failure to properly locate each socket.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an adapter and method for relocating a fluorescent tube in a light fixture quickly and easily, such as to minimize the labor and thus the cost of such relocation.